After
we began to play at round games, in which I took a lively part. While indulging in “cat and mouse”, I happened to
rather awkwardly against the Kornakoffs’ governess, who was playing with us, and, stepping on her dress, tore a large hole in it. Seeing that the girls—particularly Sonetchka—were anything but
at the spectacle of the governess angrily departing to the maidservants’ room to have her dress mended, I resolved to
them the satisfaction a second time. Accordingly, in pursuance of this
resolution, I waited until my victim returned, and then began to
madly round her, until a
moment occurred for once more planting my heel upon her dress and reopening the rent. Sonetchka and the young princesses had much ado to restrain their laughter, which excited my
the more, but St. Jerome, who had probably divined my tricks, came up to me with the frown which I could never
in him, and said that, since I seemed disposed to
, he would have to send me away if I did not moderate my behaviour.
However, I was in the desperate position of a person who, having staked more than he has in his pocket, and feeling that he can never make up his account, continues to
on unlucky cards—not because he hopes to
his losses, but because it will not do for him to stop and consider. So, I merely laughed in an
fashion and flung away from my monitor.
After “cat and mouse”, another game followed in which the gentlemen sit on one row of chairs and the ladies on another, and choose each other for partners. The youngest princess always chose the younger Iwin, Katenka either Woloda or Ilinka, and Sonetchka Seriosha—nor, to my extreme
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